


Beautiful and Infinite

by alteabellerose



Category: Lifeline (Video Game 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Pining, SPACE GIRLFRIENDS, ive always seen taylor as a woman ok ok but thats just my lesbianism talking so, mutual pining if you ask me, the lifeline is hopelessly in love, uh its a little bit, who arent really girlfriends, y at t2's parts i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 14:27:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14404059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alteabellerose/pseuds/alteabellerose
Summary: Tayline, used they/them for Taylor to keep things neutral. This roughly follows the timeline of Halfway to Infinity but it's disjointed. It's like snapshots, I guess, and how my lifeline felt in the moment. Whole bunch of Halfway to Infinity spoilers





	Beautiful and Infinite

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for a brief and mildly graphic description of burning to death  
> Anyways,, my inspiration for this one was a quote from a post I've seen floating on tumblr that goes "you have constellations/inside your eyes/comets bounce/around your ribs/and galaxies exist/between your thighs/you are a universe, my darling/beautiful and infinite". source on the post is brunette-ambition via wnq-writers

_[incoming communication]_  
_[establishing connection]_  
_[receiving message]_  
  
My phone lights up, gives a little series of dings, three of them, each separated from the previous by a second of silence. For just a moment, I dare to hope. Picking up my phone, I ask, "Is this who I think it is?" I cross my fingers, pray to every deity I can think of. They've been gone for months after flying their ship into the black hole. A stranger had come, they said, and asked if they wanted to "get out of here". Then radio silence. No word for far too long. I'd assumed the worst, because Taylor had yet to meet someone since this began who didn't end up dead or trying to kill them. 

They shoot back, "Do you think I'm a science student who fell ass-backwards into becoming an astronaut... and that I keep finding myself in situations that are way, WAY over my head... and that I could really use someone like you to talk me through the rough parts?" In that moment, I've never been so happy in all my life. 

We are a universe apart, but we are together. 

\---- 

They say burning alive is the most painful way you could possibly die. Feeling every one of your nerves alight, slowly choking on carbon monoxide, your skin melting like weak plastic put in the microwave for too long. And so I have to look up how to put out a magnesium fire for a science student. I pray that Google's first answer is the right one. 

"Use the sodium chloride." Fingers crossed. 

"It’s working! Oh, thank God, it's working!" 

"Thank God," I echo, feeling the weight of Taylor's life come up off my shoulders, the immediate threat of losing them gone. Just for a second, though, I know. Taylor wouldn't be Taylor if they could keep out of trouble. Never a dull moment. 

\---- 

"Okay. I know how insane this is going to sound, but... it's ME." 

"What?" 

"A version of me. From a week into the future." 

"You said it was a stranger's voice." 

"It... it WAS. It IS. I mean, say something out loud. Go ahead. I'll wait. 'I love Taylor,' or 'Taylor is the best,' or 'I'm going to mail some chili macaroni to Taylor.'" 

I have to laugh. Ever the comedian. I know what they're trying to explain, the sound of your own voice being different to your own ears than to others', but in my head I still see myself saying "I love Taylor," and "Taylor is the best," and "I'm going to mail some chili macaroni to Taylor." And once more, "I love Taylor." 

All the world's butterflies have found a home in my stomach. 

\---- 

We listen to music together. A playlist one of the military vessel's crew members made. I listen to one of the songs draw to a close as it echoes Elvis Presley a final time. A lump forms in my throat, because in that moment I know. I wonder if they feel it too, hearing the closing "But I can't help falling in love with you." They're too busy trying to stay alive to think about it, I rationalize with myself. We listen to a new song and Taylor tells me, "I don't know if you're keeping all these communications between us... but I like to hope they're as meaningful to you as they are to me." I let myself hope, then. "And I like to hope that – if I ever make it home, someday, somehow, -- we might meet up." 

The "I love you," I want to shout rests on the tip of my tongue, but fear keeps it from leaving my mouth. I stammer for a moment, choking on everything I feel for them, and in the end all I can muster up is a "Me too." 

"Want to go again?" 

"Yes." _Always._

\----- 

Orange text lights up my screen. 

"What do you mean, 'talking it over'? Talking with who?" 

Then the familiar soft blue. 

"With, uh... with my lifeline." 

"No offense, but what the HELL are you talking about?" 

I interject, "T2 doesn't know me?" 

Taylor doesn't respond to me, goes back to talking to T2. "You don't... have a lifeline, T2?" 

I'm less fond of T2 than I am of Taylor. They're suspicious, they claim to be Taylor but they're different. They don’t sound like Taylor, don't always act like Taylor. Taylor's presence is calming, comforting, makes love and warmth bloom like a bouquet, an arrangement of asters, heliotropes, sorrel growing in my chest. T2 is familiar in a sense, but colder than Taylor. Harder, like metal. Like talking to the IEVA suit rather than the unlucky college student beneath it. 

I hadn't really thought about the possibility of another version of myself, one just a little older, who'd gone through everything with Taylor the same way I have, except with the addition of an extra week. I guess, now, I don't need to. I wonder how T2 made it through on their own. I feel bad for them, guilt welling up inside me, sadness that this Taylor had to go it alone this whole time. I was never there for them. 

"There's no one helping me make my decisions out here in the dull, cold void of space... and there never has been. NEVER. Of COURSE no one was helping me. I was lost, and terrified, and ALONE. At night, in the pitch black darkness, I prayed for someone to help me. I begged. I SCREAMED." 

My heart aches for them. There's nothing I want more than to hug my Taylor. Knowing what could've been, I want Taylor to know I will always, always be here for them. The only thing going through my head is my desire to be close to Taylor right then, to wrap my arms around them, kiss their temple, be there for them. Like I never could be for another version of them. 

\---- 

Schrödinger's lifeline. That's me. Taylor tells me they think I broke the loop. That there were a million Taylors, that T2 is just the latest one in the cycle. But my Taylor is different. I made all the difference, they say. They once told me I was "a drop of sanity in an ocean of chaos." Closer, then, to a drop of companionship in an ocean of Taylors. The end of the inevitable, if Taylor is right. 

"I don't know what's going to happen on the other side of this airlock... but I'm so glad you'll be there to help me through it." 

There's never been anything more important in my life than being the reason Taylor gets to break the cycle. Nothing has ever meant more to me than this opportunity, the ability to protect Taylor from whatever awful fate would otherwise await them. Part of me wishes I could've been there for all of the Taylors, but I'm here now for _my_ Taylor and they are the most important to me. My heart bursts with the knowledge that I have really, truly been helping them. That I can save them, and maybe one day even return them safely to earth, hale and whole. 

\---- 

"Are you still there, Taylor?" 

It's a question I ask in desperation, too fast and too breathy, though that doesn't translate through speech-to-text. They unhooked themselves, let themselves drift in open space to inevitably be sucked into the black hole. T2 is gone already, and good riddance, but I don't know if I can go months on end thinking Taylor is dead all over again. 

"I'm still here... but for how long, I don't know." 

They go on about the black hole, about T2 stretching out into nothing, something I don't want to think about because I know they're next. They'll leave me again. 

"But you're safe, right?" 

"I'm... I'm afraid not. I've gone past the threshold. There's no coming back from this point." I've never felt so cold in all my life. I breathe too fast, too shallow. Tears sting my eyes and track down my face. I have to hold it together a moment longer. 

They promise me. "I don't know what's on the other side of this black hole – if anything – but if there's a way to find you from there... I promise... I will." All I can do is hold them to it. They thank me and say goodbye, words I never wanted to hear from them. And I whisper into the phone because a whisper is all I can manage. Reaching into the vacuum of space, the black hole that's torn them apart at the seams, I tell it "Taylor, I love you." And all I can do is hope that they know. 

And again, we are a universe apart.


End file.
